Sewing Miss Audrey Take Two

Summer’s here in Perth which means hot days, warm nights, weekend bbqs and pretty summer dresses! Ok, well in fairness pretty summer dresses are downright impractical with two little boys running around but I’m SURE sometime soon I’ll have the need to take my second Miss Audrey out for a party or two.

Either way, I’m loving this second version of the Miss Audrey Dress pattern I sewed up over Christmas! I made this first one for the pattern test and couldn’t resist joining in the sew a-long that Ann hosted after the pattern release. I really wanted to try the lined version and also change the pleats slightly to be similar to this RTW dress I have (and LOVE!). I might rustle together a tutorial on the pleat hack soon if anyone’s interested.

It really is such a gorgeous dress pattern. And now, every time I’m out shopping I keep seeing “Miss Audreys” all over the place! It’s amazing how much I take notice of how garments are constructed these days since I’m sewing so much more for myself. It never used to cross my mind but now I’m like…”that’s just like such-and-such a pattern. I can totally make that!”

I used the adjusted pattern I made for the first version (size 10) but adjusted the sway back alteration even more. What I did forget to do was take in the extra 3/8″ at the side seam that I did on the first one and only realised after I’d already sewn on the skirt. Nope, I wasn’t unpicking that bad boy (?girl) so she’ll just have to do.

I used this gorgeous quilting cotton I had in my stash and managed to squeeeeeeze it out of 2 yards. I quite like the slight stiffness that using quilting cotton gives to the skirt but added to the cotton voile lining it does mean it could make it a bit too thick to wear only our really hot summer days.

Here’s the back…

I love the pleats… I hate the extremely poor invisible zipper efforts *cringing*. Saying that, I finally had a win the other day sewing my betsy skirt and finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I think it might be a bit tricky to fix this one up since it’s lined but I’ll definitely be sorting out the zip on my first Audrey – and no more visible invisible zips from now on!

I paired her up with my fun new summer wedges and a belt and I think she looks the part.

There will definitely be more Audrey’s to come. Ann is currently writing her ecourse on how to fit and sew a bunch of variations to this dress so I can’t wait to see what she comes up with!!

For now I’m just looking for an excuse to take this pretty out. High tea anyone?